Devil in the Delta (11 page)

Another significant moment we had in Magnolia Man-
or happened in what is known as the 1849 Room. It had already been an active night with several small occurrences, so we had migrated into this room to take a break. As Mike and I sat in the room and talked, it became apparent that we were not alone.

At one point, both of us stopped talking because the crystal clear sound of a woman laughing was coming from just outside the bedroom door! I quickly got up, went to the door, and opened it. Nothing. Nobody in sight. So I closed the door and returned to the bed. A few moments later, the same thing—only louder and more sustained. Again, I got up and checked the hallway. Nobody was there. In fact, the only female in the entire place was the owner, and she had already turned in for the night downstairs.

Later, when we reviewed all of our audio and video recorders in the house, the disembodied laughs were recorded on a whopping three devices. Not only were the sounds loud enough for us to hear in real time, but they were of a volume significant enough to be recorded two rooms away. That's a heckuva disembodied voice.

So what did this teach us? A strange but true lesson: sometimes the best way to get a spirit to pay attention to you is to ignore it. Though we'd had some activity at Magnolia Manor earlier that evening, it wasn't until we stopped and did our own thing that the spirit felt compelled to do something dramatic—almost like a child who has been ignored. As strange as that sounds, it worked at this location and has worked many times since.

The final incident I want to mention at this home involves the cottage that's out back, behind the house. Today that area is a self-contained mini-house that visitors can rent and stay in. But in past years, it was the servants' quarters. Over the years, various paranormal groups have stayed in the cottage and gotten some great EVPs. So, knowing this, we spent a lot of time in the cottage attempting to do the same thing.

Since we had already heard evidence caught by other groups from the cottage, we were able to skip the preliminaries and go straight to asking questions directly to the spirit that we had heard recorded by others. This saved a lot of time and got us some great interaction with the spirit. Once we started hearing some odd sounds coming from the little kitchen in the cottage (Mike and I were sitting in the living room for the EVP session), we decided to implement a technique called Singapore Theory.

Basically, Singapore Theory involves playing music from the era that you think a ghost once lived in. It's thought that this might entice a spirit to participate with investigators—or at least come in to check out the music! We started by playing old songs that would have been around in the late 1800s—mostly Civil War-era songs. Nothing happened.

After a few tunes, we moved forward to some circa 1920s jazz and big band tunes. This hit the mark. Not long after the first song started, noises in the kitchen started getting louder. At one point, it actually sounded like a heavy person suddenly stepped on the metal furnace that was in the floor directly behind us. Now that we knew we had the attention of whoever was there, we started trading songs for activity.

In other words, we would turn off the music, ask if we should play another song, then ask for a tap or knock response. When we managed to get those, we then started asking for the entity to speak to us. A review of the audio we captured in the cottage that night was amazing. Not only were we getting the knocks and taps we requested, but a mysterious male voice (possibly a young boy) was actually imitating us.

Several times over the course of the investigation, I would say something and, immediately after I said it, the strange voice would try to repeat what I just said. And the voice had an eerie quality to it—like it was spoken through a mouth full of food or something. At one point, the spirit even said Mike's name.

We learned that night that experimenting with new techniques like Singapore Theory is a must—and that we can't give up on something just because it isn't immediately working. The spirit didn't want to communicate with us initially, but once we found the right combination of requests and songs, we got more than we bargained for.

Another point worth noting is that investigators should always pay attention to what is reported at a location. It would have been easy to blow off the reports of other paranormal groups (or even the residents there), but paying attention to their information, as well the hot spots pointed out to us, allowed us to spend our time concentrating on things that would be successful, rather than fumbling to do something/anything randomly that may or may not work.

Looking back at cases like Magnolia Manor, the Old Talbott Tavern, and even way back to Devil's Backbone, one thing is crystal clear: we must never stop learning! There is no single way to perform an investigation. While we at Paranormal Inc will always approach a case scientifically, there are many ways to do this—and, I'm sure, many ways that have yet to be discovered.

I only hoped that my past experiences and methods that I learned from cases like these would help me out with the Martin family. After one evening in the trailer, I was already experiencing some new occurrences, so I just hoped that I would find the right combination of techniques and approach to bring about some resolution for everyone there.

Much like with Magnolia Manor, I would have to pay attention to the hot spots of the Martin home and not be afraid to try some new techniques and to experiment. Also, I would have to pay attention to any evidence that I managed to capture during my first visit. Of course, I would have to finish the long drive back home before I could review anything I had captured during my first investigation …

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5

Examining the Data

It was now time to go over the massive amount of photographic, audio, and video evidence that I had collected during my night at the Martin residence. This is the work that separates the recreational ghost hunters from true paranormal investigators. Over the course of my six hours in the home, I had used two camcorders, three audio recorders, and a still camera in almost constant operation.

This meant I had over 300 photographs to review, 18 hours of audio to listen to, and 12 hours of video to watch. And this didn't include the DVR system (with multiple camera angles) and audio recorders that the Mississippi group had rolling during the evening. My only consolation was that they would be reviewing that footage.

With a recreational ghost hunt, like those listed on the Paranormal Inc website, our team may take up to
several weeks to go through this much data. This is because there is no immediate need to assist anyone. (Recreational ghost hunts usually take place at museums, bed-and-breakfasts, etc., that typically just like having evidence of their haunting for publicity or for personal satisfaction.)

But with a case that involves a private residence and actual, concerned residents, an effort has to be made to wrap up a review as quickly as possible. Joanne and her family would be sitting on pins and needles until we informed her one way or the other about what we did or didn't find during our visit. And who could blame her?

After informing my wife that I would be locked away in “the cave” for many hours (possibly days) doing a review, I settled in with my headphones and fired up the computer. Thanks to today's technology, the information gathered at a typical ghost hunt can be scrutinized with a fine-toothed comb without ever leaving the comfort of your home workstation.

Photos would be dissected and analyzed with Adobe Photoshop, audio with Audacity and Soundforge, and video with Sony Vegas (my nonlinear editing program of choice). Even the notes taken during the investigation could be transcribed and saved in a Microsoft Word document for archival purposes.

Performing a review in this manner is great because it's straightforward, allows for easy archiving, and makes sending a copy of the entire data (including notes, findings, etc.) to the owner of a property as easy as burning a DVD-ROM or just emailing the files.

With all the footage now lit up in front of me on my monitor, I took a deep breath and waded in with more than a mild expectation of finding something extraordinary. I started with the photographs. I carefully scanned each photo taken for anything that appeared to be out of place.

Beginning with the upper-left corner of each photo, I would slowly pan in a clockwise circle around the image, slowly working my way toward the center. This allows me to check every pixel for anything untoward.

Looking at some of the rooms for the second time, I was still amazed by the level of sheer mess that lay about the place. Fortunately, though, mess is not paranormal! Nothing immediately jumped out at me as I reviewed the photos. In the end, though I had taken numerous photographs, only one seemed to contain something of an odd nature.

I had taken a series of photographs outside the front of the trailer using the “night shot” feature of my Sony still camera. The perk of using this feature is that you need little to no light to get a great shot—and you also capture a portion of the light spectrum that is usually not visible to the human eye (infrared). Many investigators believe that
the energy needed to facilitate a haunting—and possibly even an actual ghost—can be visible in the infrared spectrum.

In this case, I had snapped a photo of the trailer's front window, where the television had made its impromptu exit, and then I took a step to my right and had taken a second photo of the same area by the front steps. The first photo contained nothing. The second, however, appeared to have a strange bearded face peering from beside the steps. I zoomed in on the photograph and took a closer look. It definitely appeared to be someone, or something.

Of course, I have been fooled by such photos in the past. When human eyes look at a picture that contains little to no obvious features, the mind tries to form recognizable images from that nothingness. This is called “matrixing.”

Looking at the photo in front of me, my mind was now matrixing a strange, bearded fellow. Or not. It was entirely possible that this was a photo of something paranormal. I suddenly wondered what John or Keith looked like—though this looked more like an aborigine from Australia than an American male living in Mississippi.

For comparison, I pulled up the reference photos that I had taken of the trailer to see if I could discern what the face could possibly be. Though I had not taken a second photo from the same exact angle, I had plenty of shots of the front of the trailer. I found nothing that would explain the face.

I would have to send the photograph to the folks in Mississippi for a second opinion and give them the chance to debunk the photo. Often, returning to the site of a photograph can assist with this. I cautioned Terri and Patricia, though, to keep the photograph to themselves. If Joanne saw the photograph, no amount of debunking, explaining, or reassuring would keep her from believing that this was, indeed, a photo of one of her ghosts. Setting the photo aside for the moment, I moved on to review the video I had captured.

Reviewing the video from the Martin investigation was like watching the world's most boring reality television show: people would occasionally shuffle in front of the camera and say something, dust would fly by, and objects that were in frame simply refused to move of their accord. Damn them!

I watched the recordings very carefully—mostly because I did not want to have to watch them a second time—and saw/heard nothing out of the ordinary. Twelve hours and 200 yawns later, I wrapped up this part of the review with nothing to show for it. Unfortunately, this is usually the case with video.

As I've learned from years of experience, pointing a camcorder at the right place—and at the right time—can be a difficult chore at best (remember the apparition at Magnolia Manor?). I had to hope that the DVR system the Mississippi team had in place had managed to capture something paranormal (and hopefully the materialization of the watch in the master bedroom). Now it was time to move on to the audio recordings—typically the most fruitful footage collected during an investigation.

Unlike the photos and video, going over the audio would prove to be the most challenging—and the most rewarding—part of the review. The challenge came from the fact that there were eight people present in the small trailer—and it was rare that all eight of us stopped talking at the same time.

Of course, through most of the recordings, only the folks doing EVP (electronic voice phenomena) work were speaking, with the rest of us sitting quietly and listening for any type of response. There were also huge chunks of audio where nobody was in the room at all with the audio recorder, so reviewing this audio was quite easy.

Once I became accustomed to the voices of those who were present, and I was able to consult my notes to see where everyone was located at what time, analyzing the audio became a (relatively) straightforward task.

Over the course of reviewing the eighteen hours of audio, I found several different, but interesting, clips:

1. When I was initially in the master bedroom doing some EVP work with Terri, the audio recorder captured a strange voice that sounded exactly like a young girl—and there were no young girls present in the place. And, strangely enough, it almost sounded like the girl said “mommy” when Joanne was speaking in the adjoining living room. Emily perhaps?
   
2. Again, I was performing EVP work in the master bedroom when the audio recorder captured the crystal clear sounds of a young girl speaking (again) in the background. Several syllables are audible, though I could not recognize any specific words.
   
3. Right after the second recording of the young girl speaking, I asked another couple of EVP questions and then there's the infamous rumble in the master bedroom. It was loud and clear on the audio recorder, just as I suspected. It's always nice when evidence backs up a personal experience!
   
4. A little while later, after the same audio recorder captured the rumble, a couple members of the Mississippi group were performing EVP work with me again in the master bedroom. I ask for anybody “present” to knock on the wall for me. There is a clear knock of response that we heard while listening to the recording in real time (which verified what I had heard on location, though I wasn't absolutely certain).
   
5. At one point, we were all outside taking a break, so the trailer was completely empty. An audio recorder in the master bedroom had managed to record an audible male moan and the sound of a bang—almost as if someone was trying to get our attention. Was this another case of an entity not liking being ignored? I would have to explore this during my next visit.
   
6. The audio recorder that was placed in Julie's bedroom picked up several interesting things. Several times over the course of the evening, a clear voice whispering could be heard in the room. During these occasions, you can hear us working in the background in another room—and most of the time, this room is sealed off from the rest of the trailer, so you can only hear a muffled version of our voices (and this is only when we are talking at full volume). So for a whisper to be so clear and audible, it would have had to occur right by the recorder. On another interesting note, at times the whispers sounded male and at others, female.
   

Now I was really scratching my head. The evidence seemed to indicate that something, indeed, was afoot at the Martin home. Most of the activity had happened in the master bedroom—just like Joanne and the others said. And there seemed to be at least one male and one female entity in the trailer—also, just like they had reported. And while at no point did any voice confirm a name for any of the entities, the benefit of the doubt now had to swing in favor of Joanne and family.

Once I had documented all the things I had found during my review, I made a quick call to the Mississippi group to let them know what I had found and to check in with their review. Unfortunately, nothing untoward was found on their audio and video equipment.

The video camera that was placed in the master bedroom was, unfortunately, out of frame when the watch materialized, so there was no footage to back this up. This, of course, was crushing news to me. I had hoped that this had been captured on video, as it would have made for some rather dramatic evidence.

Terri then reiterated to me Joanne's desire to have the house blessed, so I agreed to find someone to do this before I returned. Since I had captured some relatively good evidence of the haunting, returning to the trailer to discuss the findings with Joanne would be necessary. It would also give me the opportunity to perform a follow-up investigation and possibly debunk the photo I had taken personally.

In a lot of ways, I dreaded returning to Mississippi and telling Joanne and her family about my findings. While I was sure that they would be relieved to get some confirmation of paranormal activity, I was also sure that this might make them even more anxious about staying in the trailer over the long term.

But, even worse, there was the possibility that playing the EVP voices could cause them to spiral even further into their obsession concerning the activity and cause even more paranoia/hysteria. It was to be a dreaded meeting, indeed …

The Nonreality of Reality Television

Most associate sitting down with the owners of a haunted place to discuss the evidence found during an investigation with the television show
Ghost Hunters
. On this program, the members of TAPS (The Atlantic Paranormal Society) sit pleasantly across from the owners of the property they have just investigated, and then show them what they have found, and everyone leaves with a joke and a smile.

Of course, there is also a camera rolling the entire time, so it's no wonder the property owners always seem a little too comfortable with the findings—even findings that contradict their own experiences.

In real life, this is not always the case. In fact, it usually
isn't
the case. If you bring back evidence of a haunting to an owner who wants nothing to do with such a thing (or is possibly frightened by it), there is usually a great deal of panic that must be dealt with. What do they do about the haunting? Should they call in a priest?

Conversely, sometimes clients really want their home or business to be haunted for whatever reason—or they are completely convinced that they have a ghost. Telling these people that you found nothing can open a whole can of indignation and finger-pointing regarding your investigation methods. In these instances, it's usually best to point out that spirits don't perform on cue and that finding no evidence doesn't necessarily mean a place isn't haunted. Then run.

It's actually quite amazing how many investigators in the field have learned how to ghost hunt from watching television programs. They're pretty easy to spot—especially when you take them out with you on an investigation. They will typically have unusually low attention spans, use terms like “dead time,” and tend to gravitate toward trendy gear like the ridiculously ludicrous “Frank's Box” or “Radio Shack Hack” (essentially an AM/FM radio with a broken scan button that can supposedly tune in the voices of the dead).

On the positive side, the ghost programs have done a few good things for the paranormal field. The popularity of such things as EMF detectors and infrared illuminators have caused the prices of these items to drop considerably, since more of these types of products are sold these days—and the availability of these devices is at an all-time high.